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Macbook firmware lock - Data loss

Started by Cuntbeaks, May 20, 2021, 04:05:50 PM

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Cuntbeaks

I know fuck all about Macbooks, but have been using one for work for about a year. Over the last few weeks it has been going update daft and after it tried to install the Catalina update the other day it rebooted and now seems to be borked.

It only gets as far as displaying a black page with a padlock and password entry, no passwords works and the IT guy who built doesn't know either. Apparantly it's a Firmware Lock, and there doesn't seem to be any way around it and I don't want to start messing about with it. I need to take it into the office tomorrow for a rebuild but it will be an absolute disaster if i lose all my work.

The question is, can you rebuild a Mac without losing all the data on it?

Not great that the IT person that installed your Macbook doesn't know the firmware password. They or someone else in your organisation would have set it.

You only get the firmware password message if trying to boot into an unknown boot drive or if your current boot drive has become unbootable. If it's the latter, there's a fairly good chance your data is already lost.

You could try booting into recovery by holding down CMD+R whilst turning on the power and having a look at what drive it's trying to boot from in disk utility. It could be as simple as one of the updates confusing things and pointing at the wrong boot drive.

If that doesn't apply and your IT people cant find the firmware password, the only way to fix it is via a full reinstall and, sadly, that means nuking everything on the boot drive.

BlodwynPig

Starmer is going to be mad you lost the new manifesto draft!!

Cuntbeaks

Cheers. I've already tried the cmd R lark and it doesn't work, it still keeps going straight to the padlock screen.

I fear the worst.

Dex Sawash


Apple goes on about the Genius Bar,   try holding that down

earl_sleek

A bit of googling suggests an Apple store or approved vendor might be able to bypass the firmware lock but will only do so if there's evidence of ownership.

Cuntbeaks

I took it into the IT guys today and he apparantly had access to the firmware lock password, so it seems to be sorted. Picking it back up on Monday.

I considered the "genuis" bar, but as its a work laptop, i have no proof of ownership and they would probably assumed I'd stolen or found it and called the rozzers.